


Orbit

by eiluned



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (with a few bumps along the way), Angst, F/M, Fight Sex, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 21:15:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/423275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eiluned/pseuds/eiluned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're two people who don't really touch.  They're caught in orbit around each other, always circling, never colliding.  Maybe it's time to nudge that orbit so that they spiral instead of circle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orbit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roboticonography](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roboticonography/gifts).



> Thanks to Amanda for all of her help, suggestions, and encouragement as I wrote this. :) Thanks to Kat for her help with Natasha's random burst of swearing in Russian. Fic cover by me.
> 
> This is based on a prompt from roboticonography: "Recovery--where do they go at the end of The Avengers?"
> 
> Feedback makes me smile. I'd love to hear what you think.

  


It's dark, and she knows Clint isn't sure where they are. When they left Central Park, they had bags in the trunk of the S.H.I.E.L.D. car, and then he took a sleeping pill and they got on an airplane.

They're on the Oregon coast, in a tiny house perched on a cliffside between Otter Rock and Depoe Bay. They're in Oregon because Fury told them not to leave the country, and this is Natasha's farthest safe house from New York that's still within the borders. Maybe she should set one up in Alaska or Hawaii, because even Oregon doesn't feel far enough away. She needs to be far removed from the wreckage and the reminders of what happened, and she has the feeling Clint does, too.

She can hear the ocean crashing into the rocks at the base of the cliff, two hundred feet below their perch on the deck.

Natasha is sitting beside him on a wooden bench, and she wishes to fucking god he would touch her, but they're two people who don't really touch. They're caught in orbit around each other, always circling, never colliding.

She can hear Clint breathing beside her, feel the warmth of his body just inches away.

Maybe, she thinks, it's time to nudge that orbit so that they spiral instead of circle.

Maybe she needs that touch. And judging by the slump of his shoulders, she thinks maybe he needs it too.

She bumps his shoulder with hers, the brief press of arm against arm that is their usual method of conveying comfort, and he glances at her, a faint smile curving his lips.

To an outside observer (that is, anyone but her), it would look like Clint has shaken off Loki's brainwashing. He was himself during the battle in New York, efficient and deadly and smart-assed, but Natasha knows him well. She knows from the dark circles under his eyes and the faint tremor in his hands that he hasn't shaken it off, not entirely.

She's been unmade and remade so many times that she can't remember who she was to begin with. She just knows who she is now, the woman she's made herself into. Clint has always been Clint; this is his first rodeo, and she can tell he's having trouble separating Clint from Loki's Clint in his head. She knows he's worried Loki is still in there, lurking, waiting for the perfect moment to strike and take him over again.

She knows he's afraid.

"Come on," she says and stands, not touching him; forever orbiting.

He eats what she puts in front of him (soup out of a can; they arrived too late and too tired to stop at a supermarket), but he doesn't speak.

There's only one bed and Natasha lets Clint have it, silencing his protests with a pointed look. But the walls are thin, and when the nightmares start, she knows it.

She stands in the doorway for a moment, watching him shudder in his sleep, and she wonders if he has the same nightmare she does, if he dreams about killing her intimately with Loki hovering over his shoulder.

She could have killed Clint on the Helicarrier. She had no way of knowing if it was possible to knock Loki out of his head. She'd even had a bead on him on the catwalk; he had no idea she was there, and as fast as he is, he can't dodge bullets, not from her gun.

She just couldn't bear the thought of living in a world without Clint.

She can't take it anymore; she says his name, not daring to come closer until he's awake, and sure enough, he bolts upright with a knife in his hand.

"Clint," she says again, pitching her voice low and soothing, and after a second he puts the knife on the bedside table and passes a hand over his haggard face.

"Sorry," he mutters, and she knows he's embarrassed.

She pads silently to the bed and crawls in beside him, nudging him to move over. At first, he looks like he can't believe what she's doing, but after a second he shifts to the side. There's barely enough room for two people in the small bed, but that doesn't matter because Natasha needs him close, needs to press her whole body against his. She needs the contact, needs the reassurance that he's there, he's still with her.

He's stiff in her arms, tense like a drawn bowstring, and he stays that way long enough that she thinks this is a mistake. It hurts a little, and though she can take pain, she doesn't want to prolong this. She starts to pull away, but suddenly his arms are around her, crushing her to him, his body shaking with suppressed emotion.

"I was going to kill you," he whispers, torn and broken, his face pressed into her hair. "I didn't even think. I just wanted you dead."

"You know you can't take me at hand-to-hand," she says, trying for a lighthearted tone, but she sounds just as shattered as he does.

"You should have shot me," he says, barely audible.

Natasha pushes herself up on one arm so she can look at him, and she has to fight to keep her breath steady. "No," she spits out. "No."

"How did you know you could knock sense into me?" he says, self-loathing written all over his face. "You didn't. You should have killed me so I wouldn't kill anyone else."

"Fuck you," she seethes, not even really sure why she's so furious; she had thought the same thing, even if she couldn't go through with it. "I will not--I cannot kill you, Clint. I refuse. There is always another way, goddammit."

Suddenly he's looking at her like he's never really seen her before, like her anger flipped on a spotlight and revealed something that even she refused to acknowledge.

Their orbit destabilizes. They crash together.

His lips are hard against hers, bruising, his hands hot against her skin, his body damp with nightmare sweat and warm from the blankets. She yanks his t-shirt over his head, lets her fingers linger on his scars (some she bandaged, some she put there), lets him roll her underneath his body because she can tell he needs that just as much as she needs to feel the solid reality of him.

'Love is for children,' she told Loki, and she was only half-lying. She had always thought that love made you weak, made you stumble, made you hesitate. It was a distraction, and she lived a life that didn't afford leniency for distractions.

But Clint got under her skin. She didn't know if she loved him or if it was something deeper, something that went beyond love. She couldn't remember ever loving anyone. This was virgin territory, and it scared Natasha even while it made her stronger.

Killing Clint would have been the easy way out. She took the hard road, and it brought him back to her.

She pulls off her own shirt, and he looks down at her with a reverence she's never seen on his face before. He looks at her like he's wanted to see her like this his whole life, like he's never wanted anything more than this.

When he leans down and presses a kiss against the puckered scar on her right shoulder, at the edge of her collarbone, a moan escapes her. It's the scar he gave her the first time they met, when he saw something in her that no one else saw.

When she looked in the mirror back then, she saw someone she vaguely knew. After she had escaped the Red Room, she had begun to regain a sense of identity, but she was still just a vessel. The job poured a purpose into her, and after the job, she went back to being empty.

Clint put an arrow in her shoulder, but instead of taking the kill shot, he had looked at her face and hesitated. He had seen a glimmer of Natasha in her dead eyes, of the woman she could become. When you're given a second chance, you want to pass that blessing along. He had extended his hand, and she had taken it.

She looks in the mirror now and sees the woman that she built from the ground up, the woman she wanted to become. And at the edge of the mirror, she always sees Clint reaching out to her.

His tongue traces the pale edge of the scar, and she sinks her hands into his hair, arching her body up against his. She drags his mouth back to hers and kisses him deeply, pressing her bare breasts against his chest. They struggle out of their underwear while trying not to break the kiss; now that they've finally crossed that line, neither of them can bear the thought of stopping, even if it's just to undress fully.

She finally manages to kick her panties off of one leg, and she catches the waistband of his boxers with her foot, pushing them down and off of his legs. Her hand closes around his cock at the same moment his fingers slip between her thighs; her gasp matches his low groan, and he nips at her bottom lip.

"Need you," he says, his voice a low rumble. "Tasha, I need you--"

She silences him with another kiss, parting her legs and letting him settle between them. His fingers delve inside of her, spreading her slickness, and she cants her hips up at him impatiently. She doesn't want foreplay, doesn't want tenderness; she just wants him more than she's wanted anything else.

"Clint," she breathes, guiding him into place. "Please..."

The blunt head of his cock presses against her opening, and he suddenly breaks away from her lips. "Wait," he pants. "I don't have a condom."

"I have an IUD," she says, and then they both hesitate, not because of the lack of a condom (they know each other well enough to know neither of them sleeps with anyone else; there's no time for that), but because of the intimacy of what they're about to do.

He looks overwhelmed and aroused and a little scared, and she knows that his expression is mirrored on her own face. She wants to ask him if he's okay with this, because she as much as she wants this, she wants him to want it wholeheartedly. Her lips part on the question, but he's kissing her again, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and sinking his other hand into her hair, fingers tangling there, keeping her from escaping.

"Need you," he groans against her lips. "Want you--"

And he slowly thrusts inside of her.

It wrenches a moan from her throat, the feel of him, the burning stretch and fullness as he pushes deeper until he's fully seated, groin pressed tight against hers. It's frighteningly intimate, even more than she had expected it to be, the heat of their bodies joined with nothing separating them. Her fingers grasp at him, arms locking around his back, holding tight because if she lets go, she'll fall apart.

It leaves her panting, her breath rushing in and out in time with his harsh breathing.

They begin moving, and after a moment's fumbling, they fall into rhythm, bodies drawing apart and coming together, but it's too fast, too desperate. She can only hold onto him as he rushes headlong toward climax, his face buried in the curve of her neck.

She wonders if he's seeking absolution in her body. His moans are a litany, rising as he reaches his peak too quickly, spilling inside her in a frenzied rush.

A few more shaky breaths and he pulls away, rolling onto his back and covering his face with a hand.

Natasha waits for a moment, but he stays silent and doesn't make any move to look at her. She carefully gets up and goes into the bathroom to clean up. Hurt is lodged in her throat, and no matter how hard she tries, she can't swallow it down. When she comes out, it's to find that he's turned to face the wall, his back to her.

She picks up her shirt from the floor and goes back into the living room, retrieving a new pair of panties from her duffel bag. Even though she cleaned herself, his wetness still brands her, seeping between her legs, and she doesn't know what to do with that, with herself. She thinks she must have been stupidly naive to hope that fucking would fix anything.

Pulling on a pair of sweats, she grabs her blanket from the couch and goes out onto the deck, curling up on the bench. It's close to dawn; she can see faint light beginning to creep into the eastern sky behind the house. The ocean is still dark, though. She can't see it, but she can hear it pounding away, crashing into the dark cliffs below her in an unending effort to make them crumble.

She huddles up against the damp chill.

When the sky lightens a bit more and it becomes obvious that she's not going to go back to sleep, Natasha gets up and puts on shoes, grabbing the rental car keys. They need more food than canned soup if they're going to stay here, so she writes a quick note on a sheet of scrap paper she finds in a drawer and leaves.

There's a 24-hour supermarket in Newport, just down the coast, and she buys food without really paying attention. On the winding drive back to her house, she tries to decide what she's going to do when she gets there. Apologize? For what? Pushing him? Needing him? She knows it's the coward's way out, but pretending nothing happened is the most appealing option to her right now. She's never been in this kind of situation before; she's never cared enough about someone else to be terrified of how they'll react to her presence, to be terrified that she'll say or do the wrong thing.

The house is empty when she gets back, though, and she doesn't know if that's a reprieve or a curse. Her note from earlier has been flipped over, and on the back it says "Running. Be back later," in Clint's clipped handwriting.

She puts the groceries away and starts a pot of coffee. She's not hungry, but she knows she needs to eat, so she sticks a couple of waffles into the toaster and waits for the coffee to brew.

She's washing her plate when the door opens, and in the window reflection, she watches Clint pause for a second, looking at her back, before taking off his shoes and disappearing into the bedroom.

The shower comes on, and Natasha sighs. She and Clint spend most of their time together in comfortable silences. They get chatty sometimes, when there's something to talk about, and they trade witty banter often. But neither of them is much for small talk, and so they just exist in each other's presence.

This silence is uncomfortable, like there are words hanging between them. No, not words. Emotions that she's too afraid to air out.

She refills her coffee cup and goes out on the deck again.

The waves seem higher, rolling in off the Pacific in big, even swells. She vaguely remembers reading about the signs of an impending storm once, but a storm would suit her just fine. She imagines she can feel each wave crashing into the cliff, shaking the foundations of the house.

She chose this house partly because of its isolation (if you don't know you're looking for it, you'll never find the turnoff) and partly because of its precariousness. It's a sturdy, new cabin, but it's perched right at the edge of the cliff. The foundations are sunk into solid basalt, but you're still at the edge of a precipice. At the edge of the cantilevered deck, you can look down and see nothing but air until you hit the rocky shore two hundred feet down.

The waves aren't shaking the house, but she's shaking anyway. She grips her mug tight and pulls her legs up on the bench, curling into herself. She's shivering from the morning chill, yes, but she feels colder than that. She feels like she stripped herself naked and was abandoned in the snow.

Abandoning her coffee on the bench, she goes around the side of the house, getting off of the deck without going inside. The road is terrible for running--too narrow and curvy--but she doesn't care. Obviously Clint didn't get killed this morning, and there shouldn't be much in the way of traffic at 7 am anyway.

She runs for an hour, until sweat pours down her body and her hair is plastered to her neck, until her legs and lungs are screaming, and then she turns around and runs back to the house. Clint's nowhere to be seen again, so she showers and pulls on a sweater and jeans. Her coffee is ice cold on the deck. She puts the mug on the floor and curls up on the bench again, hugging her knees to her chest.

If she thought the run would quiet her mind, she was wrong. As she watches the western sky darken with clouds, she runs through what happened the night before, over and over, analyzing it from every angle, trying to see where she went wrong. She remembers the desperation in his voice, in his body, how he said that he needed her, how he looked at her, and she just can't make the way he withdrew from her make sense.

And over and over in her head, she hears his voice: _You should have killed me._

A noise at the side of the deck makes her snap back to reality, and she watches Clint climb up the steep steps that lead down the cliff face to the edge of the ocean. He must have been perched on the rocks below, because his clothes look damp, seaspray beading on his fleece jacket and in his hair. He glances at her, but doesn't speak, passing by her silently on his way into the house.

Natasha wants to beat her head against a wall. Better yet, she wants to beat his head against a wall, to knock this silent, foul mood out of him the way she knocked Loki out.

She takes a deep breath, because she knows that's not the way to approach this. If she were to get angry with him, he would shut down; she's seen him do it too many times before. And she doesn't want to be angry with him, because she understands what it feels like to not have control, to be removed from your own mind. When it comes down to it, she's not angry at him for his reaction to that.

She's angry because he turned away from her. That hurt her more than she wants to admit even to herself, and when she gets hurt, she gets angry.

Standing, she follows him into the house, dumping her cold coffee down the drain in the kitchen. "Are you hungry?" she asks, but doesn't bother waiting for an answer.

She cooks chicken and vegetables and pasta and dumps it on two plates. The entire time they eat, he doesn't look at her, and that hurt turns to even more seething anger.

When he gets up and goes into the living room without a word, she snaps. Bolting to her feet, she follows him and grabs his arm, and she really doesn't know what she intended to do or say. But he swings around and breaks her grip, and it turns into a fierce grappling match.

"Christ, Natasha!" he growls, staggering when she hooks a foot behind his calf in an effort to take his legs out from under him. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Shifting her weight, she slams her calf across the backs of his knees, and he goes down, yanking her forward so that they hit the rug in a tangle of bodies. "Provoking a reaction" she hisses, planting her forearm across his chest. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Gripping her arms tight, he rolls, pinning her under his greater weight. "Fuck you," he rasps and suddenly his mouth is on hers, kissing her hard enough to hurt.

This isn't what she wanted, but _god_ , she wants it so badly. She digs her short fingernails into his biceps, biting at his lips and tongue, and the kiss is more of a fight than anything tender. He shoves a thigh between her legs, and she rubs against it, all of that anger flashing into lust in a split second.

His hand slips between their bodies, yanking open the fly of her jeans and shoving them down with her panties, using his knee and then his foot to pull them all the way off of her legs. She gasps against his mouth when he pushes his groin between her legs.

"Fuck!" she gasps when he thrusts against her, the denim stretched over his hard cock rasping against her sensitive flesh.

Pulling back, he shoves his pants and boxers down below his knees and then flattens his body against hers, teeth bruising her bottom lip in a harsh kiss. Wrapping a hand around his forearm, she hooks her leg around his and in a swift movement, shoves up on his chest and flips him onto his back, straddling his waist.

She doesn't want to look at him, just wants to fuck him, but as she sinks down, the penetration slicked by her arousal, he stares at her and she can't help but look back. There's pain in his eyes, hurt and anger and something deeper and darker that she's never really seen in him before. If it hadn't been for the burning stretch of his cock inside her or the hot, near-painful grip of his hands on her hips, she might have recognized it for what it is: fear.

He plants his feet against the floor and holds her hips tight, fucking her hard and fast, and she meets his thrusts just as brutally, her hands braced on his chest. It's rough and it's not pretty, but it sends fiery pleasure lancing through her body. She grinds hard on him, using his body to bring herself off in a breathless rush.

Her own moans have barely tapered off when he pulls her hips down, thrusting up so he's buried as deep as he can go in her body, a strangled series of cries escaping his throat as he pulses inside of her.

And then they're left panting for breath, not knowing what to do next.

Natasha gets to her feet unsteadily, going to the bathroom to clean up. When she comes back, he's still sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room, but he's pulled his jeans back up, though they're still unbuttoned. He looks up as she picks up her pants and tugs them back on.

"Natasha, what the fuck--" he begins, but she cuts him off.

"No, Clint, what the fuck are _you_ doing?" she snaps; now that the lust has banked, all of her hurt and frustration bubbles back to the surface. "Why did you come here with me? I thought it was to try to get your head on straight, but you're not doing a very good job of it."

His eyes narrow at her, and his mouth sets in a hard line. "Fuck you," he says. "You don't know what's best for me, Natasha."

The words sting, but she tries to ignore the pain. "Maybe I don't, but I know what doesn't work," she retorts. "How many times has shutting yourself off fixed your problems? If you want to go spend all fucking day up a tree and ignore me, that's fine. Do it. But it's not going to fix this, Clint, and you're shoving away the one person who knows how it feels to be controlled. Who gives enough of a shit about you to come with you to fucking Oregon to help you deal with it."

She doesn't wait for him to answer. She's too hurt and angry, and if she stays, she's going to say something she'll regret. Her movements are controlled now, exquisitely controlled, because if she doesn't put a leash on herself, she's going to break something. The sliding glass door glides open, and she closes it behind herself without looking back.

The ocean is steely grey and rougher than it was that morning. She sits on the bench and pulls her legs up, wrapping her arms around them, and she squeezes her eyes shut against the tears that want to fall. She's still too angry to let herself cry, but it hurts so much.

This is why she's never opened herself up before; everything is destined to end in pain, and why the fuck would she want to do that to herself? Better to stay detached, to not care any more than she has to, because in the end, everything she cares about will be ripped away anyway.

She doesn't know how long she sits there, listening to the distant roar of the waves and the hiss of the rising wind.

Eventually the sliding glass door opens, and now she listens to Clint step out onto the deck. Other than the soft sound of his footfalls on the wood, he's silent.

That silence goes on long enough that it turns to pain, and when Natasha is this hurt, she lashes out like an injured animal.

"Are you planning on never speaking to me again, or is this just a special bout of the silent treatment?" she bites out, fists clenching involuntarily.

He doesn't answer, but she hears a soft intake of breath, and she glances at him to see hurt in his eyes.

"Natasha--" he says, but all of her hurt and fear and anger is boiling over again.

"Jesus, Clint, I know we're not people who just spill it all out, but... but I want to help you, and you're shutting me out," she says, practically vaulting off of the bench and stomping over to the far rail. "You asked me if I knew what it was like to be unmade, and I do, Clint. I'm just as scared by this as you are. Do you think I liked having to fight you? That I liked not knowing if I was ever going to get you back? Do you think I like hearing you say that I should have killed you? _B`lyad!_ Do you think I... do you think I can take that? Even I have limits, Clint, and I just cannot fucking take that. I cannot handle the thought of killing you. So please, stop shutting me out. I just want you back."

He's still silent, but there's a different air between them, and she feels like she's revealed too much. She doesn't look at him, can't look at him, because if she does, she knows she's going to shatter into a million pieces. The wind picks up, and she drops to a crouch, resting her forehead on the deck rail, watching the waves crash over the scattered boulders at the base of the cliff.

Just barely over the sound of the ocean, she hears the door slide open again, and she slams her fist down on the rail. "Goddammit," she whispers, her eyes stinging.

She knows he's still shaken, and she knows he's not someone who will easily talk about what's bothering him. And she knows she shouldn't have pushed him; this isn't something he's going to get over on his own, but he has to come to it in his own time. And she's gone and fucked it all up.

The wind hides the sound of his footsteps, and she jumps when he puts a blanket around her shoulders. "Come sit with me," he says softly. "Please, Tasha."

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she stands and turns to look at him, and he looks so tired, so worn. Without thinking, she reaches out and strokes his cheek, and he turns into her touch, his stubble pricking the palm of her hand.

He flinches suddenly, and she draws her hand away, hurt again until he blinks and wipes his face. "It's raining," he says with a slight smile.

She looks up at the clouds, now looming low over the coast. "Come on," Clint says. "Let's get inside."

His hand rests at the small of her back, not steering her but rather hovering there, a small, possessive gesture that makes some of the anger and fear roiling inside of her evaporate, replaced with simmering want. It's not just sexual desire, even though she wants him that way again and again; she just wants _him_ , wants to press her body against his and know that he's with her. Almost as soon as they get inside and close the door, the storm unleashes a torrent of rain, hammering against the glass door and windows.

It's chilly inside the house, and since she doesn't know what else to do, she builds a fire in the wood stove sitting in the corner of the living room. The wood has been sitting in the house since the last time she was here, nearly a year ago, and the fire catches quickly, engulfing the dry logs.

She feels him hovering, close enough that she could reach back and touch him.

She pulls her knees up and rests her chin on them instead, wrapping her arms around her shins. She doesn't want to risk reaching out onto to be pushed away again. She really doesn't know what she wants; she just knows that she hates the idea of going back to their old orbit. She wants to touch and be touched, to feel his lips and his breath against her skin, to hold him and know that everything is good when he's at her side.

He carefully, very carefully settles on the rug beside her, and after a moment, his hand is warm on her shoulder. "Tasha," he says. "I'm sorry--"

"Don't," she interrupts. "Clint, you don't need to apologize. I pushed you, and I shouldn't have pushed."

"No," he says. "I needed the push. You were right. I was shutting down instead of facing it. But Tash, I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I pushed you away, and I'm sorry I was rough with you. I'm sorry I was selfish."

She turns to him then; she knows what he means, and it clenches in her chest like a fist. "Clint," she breathes. "Don't... You needed it--"

"I didn't need it so much that it makes it okay that I... just fucked you. That's not how I wanted it to be."

Her brow furrows because she's not sure what he means, and he presses his lips together for a second before he clarifies, "My first time with you. I didn't want it to be like that. I just took, and I didn't give anything."

He looks at her for a long moment, trying to read her expression, but even she doesn't know what she thinks or feels. She doesn't know what to say or to do to make him understand that it wasn't the taking that hurt her, just the turning away. "Clint--" she begins.

But he sits up a little straighter, letting out a soft "oh" of understanding. He could read her so well (he was the only one who could read her), so of course he would pull understanding out of the wreckage of her reaction.

"You just... you withdrew," she says, terrified at how vulnerable she sounds. "I tried to open up, and you turned away from me. I don't know what to do with that, Clint."

His eyes clench shut, and he swears under his breath. She can see the wash of self-loathing cast over his face again, and that isn't what she wants. "No," she says, conviction making her voice stronger, and she sits on her knees and takes his face in her hands. "Do not hate yourself for this. You don't think I understand what you're going through? It hurt, Clint, but you didn't break me. I'm a tough girl, and... knowing that you're sorry is enough for me. You're just a little damaged right now, and damaged people do things they don't think through. I mean, how many times have I lashed out at you? But you convince me to not hate myself, Clint, every day. Now please, let me convince you."

"Natasha," he breathes, opening his eyes to look at her, and the line of his mouth wavers a little. "You break down every defense I've ever built."

"That's my job," she says, trying to tease a little.

He smiles faintly, turning his face into her hand. "You always knock me down," he says. "But you make me get back up stronger. I don't deserve this."

She gives him a questioning look, and he scowls for a second. "I tried to kill you," he explains, his voice shaken.

"I tried to kill you the first time we met," she counters.

His eyes come up to meet hers, and she can see that he's frustrated with her. "You weren't... you weren't Natasha then."

"And you weren't Clint. You were Clint with Loki behind the steering wheel," she says. "You may have been in there, but he... hijacked your controls. He saw your strengths and your weaknesses, and he exploited them. You can't just shake that kind of programming off, Clint. You have to rip it out. Work hard to regain yourself."

"Or just get hit really hard in the head," he quips weakly.

Her lips curve into a small smile, because that sounds like normal Clint. "Or that," she agrees.

He presses a brief kiss against her palm, and she lets her hands drop to her lap, but he catches them in his. "I know he's gone out of my head," he says, lacing his fingers through hers and staring at their entwined hands. "I'm just... It's scary, to know I can lose myself like that. I'm afraid of losing myself again, and... if I do, I'm afraid that means I'll lose you."

Her chest aches at his words, because she hates to see him hurt but also because she means that much to him. She can't remember a time when she felt needed before Clint, and hearing him say it aloud cements it. And she knows she needs him, too; nearly losing him to Loki felt like someone had ripped part of her body away. She didn't realize how much she needed him until she nearly lost him.

"You won't lose me," she says, pleased that her voice sounds steady. "And you won't lose yourself, because I'm going to be right there to punch you in the head and hit your reset button."

It startles a laugh out of him, and god, how she loves hearing that sound. "Jesus, Nat," he says, squeezing her hands. "I really don't deserve you. I'm too dinged up and rusty to have a woman like you hanging around."

"You're fine," she replies with a smile. "Hell, a little touch up, a little paint."

He looks up and grins at her like she's the best thing he's ever seen. "Did you just quote Springsteen at me?" he says, a little incredulous. "God. I knew there's a reason I love you."

She freezes in shock, her heart suddenly thumping against her ribs, and a split second later he realizes what he's said. "Nat," he says softly. "I... aw, hell."

Pushing himself up to his feet, he walks over to the glass door and looks out at the storm, resting his forearm on the glass. And Natasha doesn't know what she's feeling, because it's just too unfamiliar, to have someone tell her that he loves her. And she loves him, she knows she does, but they aren't the type to lay all their cards on the table. But he just did, whether he meant to or not, so maybe it's safe for her to show her hand.

She silently gets to her feet and goes to him, slipping her arms around his waist and pressing herself against his back. She takes a deep breath before the plunge. "I love you, too," she whispers, her heart pounding, and she feels a tremor go through him.

Her forehead rests at the nape of his neck, her nose buried in the soft fabric of his shirt, and she breathes him in. He smells like soap and sweat and sex, and underneath that, the scent of his skin. She wants to rub herself against him, let his scent soak into her skin.

He turns in the circle of her arms, wrapping himself around her and pressing his face into her hair. "You're not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?" he mutters, and she pokes him hard in the ribs in reply.

"Ouch," he says, but she can hear the smile in his voice. "Just checking."

Rising on her toes, she presses her lips to his, watching his eyes slip shut. He deepens the kiss, his tongue slipping past her lips and stroking against hers, and he hums his pleasure against her mouth, his hands clutching at her body.

"Please," he rumbles, hands slipping under her sweater and splaying across her back. "Please, let me make love to you."

Her head tips back involuntarily as a rush of want sweeps through her. "Oh god, yes," she moans, and she grips his shirt tight when he presses an open-mouthed kiss against her throat.

"Yes?" he says, nuzzling the edge of her jaw, and she repeats the word, arching against him. "Do you want me, Natasha?"

She sighs as his hands glide down over the curve of her ass, pulling her firmly against his groin, and he's already hard. "Yes," she breathes. "I want you..."

Her words make him groan, and he turns them so that her back is against the cool glass. He pops open the button on her jeans and draws the zipper down, his hand slipping under the denim and inside her panties, and she gasps when his fingertips graze over her clit, which already feels swollen and sensitive.

She wants to undress him, but his fingers plunge inside of her, and he rubs the heel of his hand against her clit. She has to spread her legs a little wider to keep her balance, and she clings to him, her hands fisted in his shirt, her hips bucking against his hand.

"God, you're so beautiful," he murmurs, tongue darting out to tease her earlobe. "Gonna make it up to you, Tasha. Gonna make you come over and over..."

Fisting a hand in his short hair, she drags his mouth to hers, kissing him long and slow, sucking on his tongue and swallowing his groan. He works her with his hand, grinding against her clit, fingers slipping in and out, until she thinks she's going to lose her mind.

She makes a strangled noise when he suddenly pulls his hand free, breaking away from the kiss to glare at him. "No," she gasps, grabbing his wrist in an effort to put his hand back where she needs it. "Don't stop, please--"

"No," he says, his voice a low growl. "No, I need to make you come on my tongue."

Those words send shivers racing over her skin, and she draws in a shaky breath. A slow smile curves his lips, and he brushes a kiss against her mouth, slipping both hands underneath her jeans and panties, pushing them down over her hips. "Do you want that, Tasha?" he asks, a teasing glint in his eyes. "Do you want my tongue inside of you?"

A moan slips from her lips, and her head tips back to rest against the cool glass. She can't answer because she's completely overwhelmed by desire. She wants him so badly she feels helpless in the face of it; helplessness would usually set her on edge, makes her want to fight to regain control, but this is Clint. She would put her life in his hands and trust him to keep it safe, and she wants to let go of all her control, all of her cool level-headedness, and she wants to hand it to him.

"Yes," she whispers, and he drops to his knees, skimming her jeans down her legs.

She steps out of her pants and underwear, and he sets her foot on the bench beside the door, spreading her open. She's so wet, so turned on that she's afraid she might come as soon as he touches her, and he seems to sense this. Instead of diving right in, he starts at the bend of her knee, trailing kisses slowly up the inside of her thigh, and she has to grip the door frame to stay upright.

She's glad she still has her sweater on because the chilly rain has made the glass door cold, but she catches the front hem of it so she can tug it up and clear her view. Clint mouths at the spot where her thigh joins her body, his eyes cut up at her, and she doesn't want anything to obscure her view of this.

The first touch of his tongue is a long, torturously slow lick starting at the mouth of her pussy, dipping inside before following a sinuous path up to her clit. He closes his lips around the swollen nub, stroking softly with his tongue, and the whimper that's torn from her throat doesn't sound anything like her to her own ears. It's a desperate and pleading sound, and she'll only ever let herself be desperate, let herself plead with him.

One of his hands holds her hip, thumb rubbing ticklish circles just inside her hipbone, and the other hand slides between her legs, cupping her ass and making her arch into him, holding her against his mouth as he licks and sucks at her. Her own hands are shaking, and so she fists one in her sweater and grips the door tight with the other, silently ordering her legs to hold her upright.

His tongue dips inside of her again, rolling back and forth, in and out, and with a gasp, she realizes that he can taste the lingering remnants of himself inside of her. He groans, the sound vibrating into her flesh, and he delves deeper, tasting their mingled flavors hungrily, and it sends desire rocketing through her. A brush of his upper lip against her clit is all it takes and she's coming, shuddering in his grip and keening her pleasure loudly enough to drown out the sound of the storm.

He gently laps at her as she comes down, love and want mingling in his expression, in the slightly smug smile turning up the corners of his mouth. She lets her foot slip down from the bench and slides down the door into his arms, craving the feel of his body against hers. When she kisses him, she can taste herself on his lips and tongue, laced by a salty, faintly bitter flavor that has to be his semen, and it makes her shudder with pleasure.

"Make love to me," she breathes against his lips, and he makes a soft sound, his hands tightening on her waist.

They stumble into the bedroom, trying to walk without breaking their kiss, and they fall into the bed, tugging clothes off haphazardly. Natasha doesn't think she can stand another second without his skin pressed against hers, and when he finally kicks his jeans and boxers off of his legs, he lays down beside her and moans when she rubs herself against him like a cat.

She wraps herself around him, hooking her leg over his hip, and tries to get as close as she possibly can. The heat of his body feels so good, so fucking good, and she wants to bathe in it, let him warm her to the core. Their hands glide over each other's skin, exploring, finding the places that make the other gasp or jerk or moan; he kisses her scar again, and she likes the idea that this would become a ritual.

There's a scar on the outside of his left shoulder, a graze from her bullet the same day he marked her with his arrow, and she presses her lips to the faint line. Those scars are as potent as any mark of devotion, binding them together through pain and healing. They've hurt each other, but through this, the touch of lips on new skin, they can atone for that pain.

Sighing, he guides her lips back to his, kissing her long and deep, his hand moving her leg up around his waist so that their bodies are pressed together from head to foot. Her breath stutters when he slowly enters her, and the growing stretch of him filling her up makes her moan. He catches her bottom lip between his teeth, sucking on it gently before sliding his tongue into her mouth again, slowly pushing and pulling her hips against his.

This position isn't the best for thrusting, but it's so intimate, and Natasha revels in the little thrill of intimidation at sharing this with him. She's had plenty of sex in her time, but it's never felt like this, like she's baring her soul to another person. She's let him get so close that it feels like they're merging, and she can't tell where her skin stops and his begins.

But eventually they get too desperate to move, and he slips out of her, moving to sit upright in the middle of the mattress, tugging her into his lap. She wraps herself around him, sinking down onto his cock, and bracing her arms around his shoulders, begins to ride him. One of his hands splays across her back, fingertips digging in, and the other wraps around the curve of her ass. They move together as seamlessly as they fight together, and it's so good, so perfect that Natasha wonders why they didn't do this years ago.

She rolls her hips against his, feeling the burn of an orgasm coiling at the base of her spine, the sensation doubling when his head dips to her breasts, licking and sucking at her nipples. He has to drop one hand back to the bed to brace himself, because now he's thrusting up into her, encouraging her to grind on him, and that coil suddenly springs wide open. She cries out and gasps until she's hoarse, body bucking against his, spasming around him, and he holds her tight, watching her come with all the same intensity as when he's lining up a shot.

She comes so hard that it's going to take her a minute to recover, but he's too desperate to wait. He pushes her down onto her back and slides his arm under one leg, catching under her knee and pressing her thigh against her body as he begins to thrust in earnest. She wraps her other leg around his hip and slides her hands down to the firm muscles of his ass, encouraging him to take her hard and fast.

He kisses her fiercely for a moment but breaks away from her lips to gasp for breath, resting his forehead against hers, driving into her body. Her hips are tilted just right so that he nudges her clit with each thrust, and even though she just came, she can feel another orgasm building. Her breathing becomes clipped and harsh, and she tilts her hips up against his, her fingers flexing against his skin.

"Oh yes," he groans. "Come for me, Tasha."

Her body seizes up, and the pleasure is so intense that she vaguely wonders if she might pass out; she can't draw in a breath, can't do anything but shudder underneath his weight. She finally manages to gasp, and that breath comes out as a ragged cry, something that might be his name but might be simply a wordless expression of ecstasy, and he moans in reply.

Clint presses his forehead against hers, their noses brushing together, and he kisses her hard, sinking his hand into her hair. His thrusts become rough, uneven, and she realizes that her orgasm has pushed him right to the edge. The knowledge that she has that power over him makes her suck in a breath, makes her body shiver underneath his again, and she loves the idea that she can turn him on past the point of no return.

He thrusts twice, three times more, and then he pushes deep, gasping and groaning and going very still, still enough that she can feel his cock jerking and pulsing inside of her. A few more thrusts and he collapses onto her, still trembling with the force of his climax. He tries to shift his weight off of her body, but she wraps her arms around his waist, holding him there. He's heavy, but she likes the feel of him on top of her, pressing her into the mattress. It's comforting, like a heavy blanket, and she lets out a little huff of laughter at the thought.

"Mmph," he mumbles, nuzzling her neck. "What's so funny?"

"You're a man blanket," she replies.

Pushing himself up on one elbow, he gives her a strange look, and she can't blame him; that was an absurd thought, and she has to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Luckily, he laughs for her, shaking his head. "Did I just screw the sense out of you, Tash?" he teases, and she grins up at him.

He settles back down onto her, and she sinks a hand into his hair, kissing him long and slow.

They shower together and move into the living room, stoking the fire in the stove and curling up on the couch. It's a comfortable silence, broken only by the sound of the storm outside, wind whistling and rain hammering against the cabin.

She can feel their orbit realigning, moving closer. They brush together as they move around in the kitchen at dinner, simple touches that nonetheless make her smile, make her sigh a little at the comfort of it. They brush together a little awkwardly--his hand slipping over the small of her back, her leg pressing against the outside of his--but they're two people who don't touch who are learning to touch each other.

Eventually Clint starts talking, slowly opening up about what that happened, and Natasha listens as he works his way through everything, offering advice when he asks for it but otherwise letting him talk it out. He ends up with his head in her lap on the couch, and she runs her fingers through his hair, resting one hand on his chest and feeling the steady beat of his heart against her palm.

When they go to bed that night, he spoons her, fitting his body to hers. It feels good, she thinks, lacing her fingers through his, and she falls asleep listening to the soft sound of his breath. The idea of this kind of intimacy is still frightening to her, but the reality of it is warm and comforting.

The next morning, she wakes up alone in bed to find that the storm has blown itself out, at least temporarily. Pulling on a jacket, she steps outside to find Clint in the tiny yard, shooting arrows into a makeshift target.

"Hey," he says with a little smile, joining her on the deck and setting his bow down on the bench. "I didn't want to bother you. I know how you are when someone wakes you up too early. Throat punching is involved, and I like my throat un-punched."

"Smart man," she replies and without so much as a thought pulls him into a kiss.

His arms go around her, and she lifts herself up onto tiptoe, all the better to press her whole body against his. She had been a little worried that it would feel weird or uncomfortable in the morning light, but he seems to have melted into this new role as lover as easily as she apparently had.

"I could get used to this," he breathes, brushing his nose against hers.

The air smells like rain and the sea, and she settles against him.

They go back to New York four days later. Natasha knows that the trip didn't erase all of the marks Loki's visit had left on them, but she feels better, and Clint is back to his usual self: quiet observance alternating with exuberant sarcasm.

Things feel like they're back to normal, except for one thing.

She stops to look at the helicarrier's repair status on a view screen, and Clint steps up beside her. He presses his hip against hers, and her hand rests on his where he's leaning on the console.


End file.
